|
|
Salad lore
|
The reason that the French and Italians eat salad at the end of their
evening meal is because the ancient Romans and Egyptians took advantage of
the natural opiate-like substance lactucarium,* present in all types
of lettuce, to induce sleep. A good lettuce variety reference page is:
|
|
University of Wisconsin, Department of Hortoculture
|
* lactucarium, English lettuce and French laitue all
come from the Latin word for milk (lac, lactis), also
related to Greek galax (whence our word for galaxy or the
Milky Way). This is because, what grew in different varieties as mostly
weeds all around the Mediterranean and that people began to eat,
contained a milky liquid in the lower parts and stems of the plant, the
most obvious example an American knows being the dandelion (dents de
lion or lion’s teeth by reason of the shape of the
leaf), whose leaves the French commonly eat in salads today.
|
|